A Triumph of Initiative and Vision - 3

So it was that the Solent Sky - incorporating the R.J.Mitchell Museum - was triumphantly opened to the public on Saturday 26th May 1984. In the intervening 18 years, under the auspices of the reconstructed R.J.Mitchell Memorial Museum Ltd and with continued assistance of local industry and large national aerospace companies - notably including British Aerospace, Westland Aerospace and Messier -Dowty - have facilitated the superb exhibition of Solent aviation which is to be seen the Solent Sky today.

The A.T.C. Cadets of the Squadron are still active in servicing the Museum. As a small tribute to their long sustained, unstinting efforts and the support of the Air Training Corps nationally, the Museum now also houses an exhibition devoted to the Corps.

Over the years the Museum has become acclaimed nationally and internationally, the collection has grown so much so that due to the finite size of the building many of the original exhibitions, such as the story of the Schneider Trophy have been reduced in size to accommodate new exhibits.

Apart from the Museums tribute to the people of the area and their work in the aviation industry, an industry which is now almost extinct the Museum pays special tribute to some of the more important personalities such as designer as R.J. Mitchell, A.V.Roe, R Chadwick Petter and Juan de la Cierva all of whom were an essential part of the industry in this area. In addition to the designers there is a special tribute to the Test Pilots of the various companies, eight of whom achieved world speed records across the Solent area.

The Southampton Hall of Aviation (Solent Sky) relies on visitor attendance and donations to keep the museum open. In this modern day rising costs are making this harder to achieve. Please help us keep the doors open by donating to our charity. Every penny helps, simply use the Paypal link to donate via your credit card, you do not need to have a Paypal account to do this. Thank you.